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3.5.12

All events presented in collaboration with and under the auspices of the Union County Performing Arts Center (and the Hamilton Stage).8 PM, Fri. Oct 26Discussion/Screening/Q&A$10 @ the Union County Performing Arts Center
An Evening with indie horror icon/Glass Eye Pix founder Larry Fessenden (The Innkeepers; Stakeland; I Sell the Dead) & Dublin born writer/director Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead).

Featuring an in depth on stage conversation between them and Dread Central’s Paul Nomad, and a screening of their collaborative effort, the Dickensian I Sell the Dead, a bumptious buddy pic about two no-luck grave robbers. Can you dig?

Dubbed a “modern day Roger Corman” by the New York Times, producer/director/actor Larry Fessenden has much more in common with foreign arthouse auteurs like Guillermo del Toro, a friend and longtime supporter, than he does with the current wave of American torture-porn directors. As founder of Glass Eye Pix (and its “no budget” arm, Scare Flix), Fessenden is known for producing smart, inexpensive “B list films with A list themes” (what the Village Voice calls “brains before blood”), mentoring a slew of young horror hot shots that include Tie West, Jim Mickle, and Glen McQuaid, the Dublin born director whose feature film debut is the period horror comedy I Sell the Dead. Body thief Arthur Blake has "five hours to kill" (his words) before he loses his head, courtesy of the guillotine. Thus begins McQuaid’s boozy buddy flick about two bumbling turn-of-the-century resurrectionists trying stay alive and make a living in undead Ireland. Think Charles Dickens by way of Hammer Horror. Written, directed, designed and edited all by McQuaid, the film features Fessenden as producer and fellow grave-robber Grimes, and stars Ron Pearlman, Dominic Monaghan, and tall man Angus Scrimm.

The landmark Union County Performing Arts Center was built as a vaudeville venue-cum-silent film house in the early 1920s. In keeping with the film's necropolitan setting, horse drawn hearses and authentic period charnel carts will be parked/displayed out front.

Click HERE for advance tickets.Click HERE for the NPR review of I Sell the Dead. Click HERE for trailer.

Featuring an on stage conversation between the Fierlingers and 2012 Caldecott honoree Patrick McDonnell (the renowned creator of the comic strip Mutts), and a screening of their film, My Dog Tulip, a cartoon for adults and the first animated feature ever to be entirely hand drawn and painted utilizing paperless computer technology.

Animated dog movie: Those three little words are enough to make parents shudder in expectation of having to accompany their kindergarten-age kids to a sentimental, anthropomorphic contrivance. But the acclaimed, hand drawn My Dog Tulip is an animated dog movie like no other and decidedly NOT for children. Called “a stroke of genius” by New York Magazine and a “post Pixar miracle” by the New York Press, My Dog Tulip has been described as “Remarkable!” by the Los Angeles Times, “wonderful and wise” by the Philadelphia Enquirer, “beautiful” by Movieline, “marvelous” by the Wall Street Journal, and “A triumph!” by the Boston Globe. Based on J. R. Ackerley’s 1956 memoir, the movie chronicles the author’s 15-year-relationship with Queenie, a German shepherd (renamed Tulip for the book and film), and features the voices of Christopher Plummer (as Ackerly), Isabella Rossellini and Lynn Redgrave.

Click HERE for advance tickets.Click HERE for New York Times review.Click HERE for trailer.

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8 PM, Thurs. Dec. 6
Presentation/Discussion/Screening(s)/Q&A$20 @ the Hamilton Stage
An Evening with two time Oscar nominee and the “King of Indie Animation” Bill Plympton.

Described by The New York Times as "ceaselessly imaginative, relentless and brilliant," and hailed simply as "God" by Simpsons creator Matt Groening, two time Academy Award–nominee and the "King of Indie Animation" Bill Plympton discusses his life and career, screens a handful of brand new animated shorts (including Summer Bummer, The Simpson’s Couch Gag, and Bill’s reimagining of Windsor McKay’s classic, The Flying House); signs his latest book, Make Toons That Sell (Without Selling Out), and draws original sketches for all who attend. Note: Anyone who buys a copy of Bill’s book will be awarded not just a sketch, but a special “Plymtoon” caricature of their own face! to use as they see fit!

Click HERE for advance tickets.Click HERE for New York Times review of Plympton's recent feature.Click HERE to watch Summer Bummer.

Raiders of the Lost Ark returns to the big screen, the much awaited BluRay box set is released, and a brand new book, Alan Eisenstock’s Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made hits the shelves, which means it’s the perfect time to see the homemade cult sensation Spielberg himself calls "hugely imaginative!" and meet the boys behind it.

After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, three 12 year old friends, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, began filming their own shot-by-shot adaptation in the backyards of their Mississippi homes. Vigilant, resourceful, and a little bit insane, these Mississippi tweens gained access to sacks of gunpowder, gallons of gasoline, a retired WWII battleship and a functioning Navy submarine. They broke bones, got grounded, blew up a garage, and got grounded again. Eric had to be hospitalized twice, once for having his hair set aflame, and once because shards of plaster from an exploding head "effect" had to be surgically removed from his scalp. Seven years later their film was in the can.
In 2003 (22 years from the project's inception), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas watched the tribute and gave it their stamp of approval, calling it "hugely imaginative," "impressive," and "lovingly detailed."

In 2004, Vanity Fair did an expansive 10,000 word feature on the boys' experiences making the movie, Quentin Tarantino became a fan, Wes Craven called the film "phenomenal," and Paramount producer Scott Rudin purchased the life rights to their story. And now, Alan Eisentock’s Raiders!, a super-charged (parents: read with caution!) mini-epic that replaces Hollywood dazzle with something far more compelling: the agony and ecstasy of raw adolescent delirium.

8 PM, Fri, Jan 18 Theatrical Performance/Discussion/Q&AKevin Augustine & Once Vaudeville$20 @ the Hamilton Stage
A technical and dramatic masterpiece, Once Vaudeville is a darkly comic portrayal of a ventriloquist whose family and fame are destroyed by senility and encroaching technology. Performance followed by an on stage discussion and Q&A with master puppeteer, actor, and playwright Kevin Augustine.

These may be puppets, but don’t confuse Augustine’s ochre-skinned oddities with Kermit or the Cookie Monster. Muppets struggle with the alphabet, Kevin’s creations fight for their soul. Grotesque and disturbingly real, Augustine’s puppets transcend the innocent bounds of “family entertainment” with haunting and human profundity (they drink, argue, and when Augustine and a prune-faced 8 footer struggle with a knife, it’s anybody’s guess who will win); and his on stage interaction with these often vulnerable characters is deft, even soulful. A showcase for the remarkable and very particular talents of a triple threat master artist, this is the kind of fearless and singular theatrical experience you always hope for, but rarely find.

Click HERE for advance tickets.

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8 PM, Fri, Feb 1

RACONTEURS & ROUSTABOUTS

Where Culture & Carnival Collide!

Live Music! Spoken Word! Sideshow Acts! All Live & Inside!

$20 @ The Hamilton Stage

Get there early and watch the H.A.T. sideshow upchuck fifteen foot flumes of flame into the blue black sky outside the theatre! Then stay for the carnie stories, the haunted ditties about side show sins, the rockabilly and ragtime, the samurai sword swallowing and the whirling power drill insertion.

Featuring sideshow extraordinaire Honor Amongst Thieves (who, as we understand it, plan to juggle and simultaneously shave with recently stropped machetes, insert a variety of meat hooks and power drill bits into their surprisingly accommodating nostrils, swallow a series of samurai swords and illuminated neon tubes, and maybe even escape from a sloshing glass box known as the Chinese Water Cell).

Also performing, vaudevillian tusk tickler (i.e. piano man) Shayfer James (left; with the singing saws of Sarah Zar); rockabilly keyboardist, one time professional wrestler, former High Times editor, and the author of Dirty, Dirty, Dirty, a highly praised post-gonzo history of pornography, Mike Edison (w/ former Sonic Youth drummer and Pussy Galore percussionist, Bob Bert). Rounding out the troupe, freakcentric fabulist and renowned "rodeo clown," Clay Mcleod Chapman, creator of the frequently perverse, occasionally petrifying Pumpkin Pie Show. Plus a handful of very exciting surprise guests (to be confirmed and announced in the next few days; stay tuned)! Shenanigans supervised by The Raconteur's resident ringmaster, Alex Dawson, who'll also be reading an original story about a Chinese giant and a tattooed ten year old who are, you guessed it, private detectives.

Described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War," the Pulitzer Prize winning, self-described “prince of the quotidian,” Paul Muldoon, writes poems filled with meaty unpronounceables and querulous urgencies (about Ulster gangsters, suburban New Jersey, and Warren Zevon). He has published thirty collections, including the recent Maggot, a raucous mix of rot and the erotic that led one critic to label it a “thrilling, wild, fairground ride, with few let-ups for the squeamish.” Late of Oxford (where he was Poetry Chair), Muldoon now lives in the United States, where he is a professor at Princeton University; Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts; and Poetry Editor of The New Yorker.

Reading and performing with his band, The Wayside Shrines, Muldoon will also participate in an on stage conversation, an audience Q&A, and a lobby meet and greet.

Featuring an on stage conversation with S.U.L.M. “engineers” Mitchell D (live) and Eddie Lee Sausage (Skype)and a screening of the acclaimed epic documentary, Shut Up, Little Man: An Audio Adventure, in which he stars.

The Shut Up, Little Man recordings feature the real-life rants, hateful harangues, soused soliloquies, and audible fistfights of Raymond and Peter – two hooch-swilling homicidal roommates in a low-rent district of San Francisco. These now infamous tapes were recorded by their much-menaced neighbors, Eddie Lee and Mitchell D. The dialogs of Raymond and Peter have been widely championed. Profiles have appeared in Spin, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The LA Times, The Washington Post , Playboy, The Wire and on Ira Glass's radio program "This American Life." Sarah Vowell, the essayist and cultural commentator, included a segment about Shut Up, Little Man in her book Radio On, calling it "some of the strangest bickering I've ever heard." The recordings have inspired comic illustrations by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Ivan Brunetti (Schizo), animation features by Kevin Peaty (principle animator of The Lion King and other Disney classics), numerous songs (e.g. Devo's "Shut Up Little Man" and Nirvana's "Dough, Ray, and Me"), theatrical plays, and film shorts. Shut Up, Little Man is widely considered to be a classic of the audio verite and field recording genres, and the recordings continue to inspire laughter, shock, and amazement at the raw humanity and dark comedy contained therein.

HAMILTON STAGE

UC Performing Arts Center

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About Me

Raconteur Ventures is an extension of the late and legendary Raconteur, a bygone brick-and-mortar bookstore on Main Street in Metuchen. The Raconteur (2004 - 2012) has been called a "literary center of gravity," an "avant-garde cultural center," and a "family friendly guerrilla street-theater emporium" by The New York Times; an "amazing" and "incredible institution" by The Huffington Post; a "literary sanctuary" by the London Guardian; a "literary landmark" by Time Out New York; and "marvelous...a museum of oddities" by The Star Ledger.